RAKK AGOS Power Supply Review

Introduction

The power supply is the lifeblood of a PC and modern consumer standards have raised awareness of PSU quality to a very good level but incident like that of GIGABYTE’s PSU fiasco a year or so ago serves as a reminder that regardless of the company’s scale, there is potential to make mistakes. But power supplies are on a different tier when it comes to risks, and a risky power supply could jeopardize an entire rig, easily multiple folds pricier than just a damaged PSU.

It’s with this thought that RAKK Gears is being very cautious in their new power supply, the RAKK AGOS line of PSUs. RAKK has sent us a retail sample of their initial batch of AGOS power supplies, specifically the AGOS 450W and 550W which are now available for purchase. In this review / validation testing, we’ll check voltage and power stability as well as endurance of the RAKK AGOS as I put it on our high-end test bench and load it with the maximum configuration we can.

Read on to find out more about the RAKK Gears AGOS power supply.

About RAKK Gears

RAKK Gears is a Philippine-based brand that started off in the mid-2010s and initially catered to cybercafes and LAN gaming centers but has evolved to break into more mainstream offering for a wider audience. RAKK primarily specializes in gaming peripherals but has also made case fans and chairs.

In this review, we’ll take a look at the RAKK Gears’ most modern power supply to date: the RAKK AGOS 80 PLUS Bronze PSU, available in 450W and 550W capacity.

Specification

Closer Look

The RAKK AGOS power supply is an 80 PLUS Bronze certified product available in 450W and 550W. This is a white-label power supply developed by Tecnomall Technology and is sold in retail under Tecnomall’s EINAREX brand.

EINAREX is currently sold in Indonesia and Malaysia but has not made scale distribution in the Philippines. RAKK Gears has had great success in their white label products under their peripheral line and RAKK AGOS is another carefully selected offering from that history of careful selection of what they want to bring to market.

Going back to the RAKK AGOS, RAKK Gears is shipping their AGOS PSUs with a black and yellow box, with the brand logo on the top opening. The capacity of the power supply is denoted in the model name e.g. AGOS 450 or AGOS 550.

The bright yellow is very distinct although there are no product shots in the box. The 80 PLUS badge is present on the front and side and we’re going to dive into more detail about 80 PLUS at the end of this review.

Both unit come packed in bubble wrap with a AC power cable, screws and the manual in the packaging. The AGOS is lined with styrofoam to add protection during shipping. Take note that these boxes do not come with a factory seal.

Both PSU capacity share the same physical design with a yellow trim around the fan grills and a power switch at the back. Take note that this is a 220V unit.

Closer Look – RAKK AGOS 550W

Ratings table for the RAKK AGOS 550W shows us 504W on 12V max and 110W on 3.3V and 5V combined.

The connectors for the RAKK AGOS 550W are all hard-wired, this is a non-modular PSU after all. The connectors are:

• CPU 8-PIN
• MB 24-PIN
• PCI-E 6+2 2x (daisy-chain)
• MOLEX x2
• SATA 3 Port x2

Cable length isn’t so generous so this is best used on smaller ATX to mATX/ITX cases.

Closer Look – RAKK AGOS 450W

The RAKK AGOS 450W sheds 100W from the 12V load rating but is also only packing a single PCIe 8-pin connector. The 3.3V and 5V max output is still at 100W, enough to fill all the SATA and MOLEX connectors with a drive.

The hardwired cables include:

• CPU 8-PIN
• MB 24-PIN
• PCI-E 6+2-PIN
• Molex x2/FDD x1
• SATA 3-port x2

Again, these are fairly short cables and while you can convert MOLEX to PCIe, take not that you’re still getting power from the 12V rail but its best to max out on a single 8-pin PCIe powered GPU with this unit. The test unit we have for this thing is exactly how I pictured a maxed-out unit would be like.

Rakk Agos Teardown Photos

Performance Testing

Test Setup

The test methodology for this focuses on the validation of stability if the PSU triggerrs its safety once overloaded. Both test setup was initially tested with an Intel Core i9-14900K running at GIGABYTE”s unleashed profile which allows the CPU to run at almost 400W which in combination with our GPU rated for 220W (RTX 3070) and 350W (RTX 3090), should allow us to put significant loads in our PSU. As such, this test excludes efficiency testing or cross-load testing and just goes for full load of our configuration.

Loads were applied via load limits either directly in OCCT Enterprise Edition or Afterburner. That said, loading the system with the Core i9 + GPU immediately triggered overload safety as this setup is setup to go straight to 400W at initial boost and settle at 370-380W. Once we confirmed the PSU would not allow us to stress it significantly past the rated capacity, we changed the CPU to an Intel Core i5-12400F.

While I do have the equipment to monitor the other voltages for this PSU, I have no equipment to put stress on the 3.3V and 5V. Given that modern users would rarely see a case for extremely high loads on either voltages, I voted to disregard testing these lines.

With that said, all the testing below is done with the configuration above using OCCT Enterprise Edition with the CPU loaded with AVX2 (Small, Steady, Extreme) and 100% GPU 3D load.

OCCT is an excellent system testing tool for stability and cooling testing as well as troubleshooting. You can download OCCT for free here.

We have the option of using either Powenetics v2 or the Benchlab telemetry kit by ElmorLabs and OpenBenchTable. While Powenetics v2 is the superior device for monitoring sensitivity as it can go at 1000 readings per second, while the Benchlab can do 2 readings per second. Regardless, this is my first time using it for this purpose so microsecond analysis is reserved for future use.

Benchlab is an enthusiast telemetry system created by ElmorLabs and OpenBenchTable and offers various measurement tools using in-line readouts for power and sensors for temperature.

For hot testing, we just propped the power supply directly on our GPU, this feeds an above-normal amount of hot air directly into the PSU and we measure the intake and exhaust temperature of the power supply as well.

If you want to see the actual load testing procedure and explanation pero in Tagalog, eto link sa Facebook videos where I explain the testing concepts a bit: test concept and telemetry (metering/data capture/loading), thermal imaging under load.

Stress Testing

We load OCCT Power Testing for 60 minutes with 5-minute rest period for the start and end of the sequence. We can see the temperature rising and falling during this period, where we see it takes around 5 minutes for the temperature to settile and put the case into its fixed temperature.

In this test, we’re just showing the actual draw on the 12V line but there’s also some draw on the other line but not being strained by this test. The RTX 3070 uses the single PCIe 8-pin to get ~150W of power and the PCIe slot for another ~70W to reach the required draw of the RTX 3070 while the Core i5-12400F draws around ~100W. The same largely is the same for the RTX 3090 test bench for the RAKK AGOS 550W but the daisy-chained dual PCIe 8-pin plugs combines for ~300W with ~70W more from the PCIe slot.

There was a comment in one of my Facebook posts saying to overclock the CPU or use 3DMark. As many of you would know, a stress test behaves much worse in terms of power draw by design. This means that overclocking the CPU is the same as the CPU turboing to its boost clocks, which is effectively what our i5 is doing. As mentioned above, I initially wanted to have a Core i9-14900K for this test but the GPU load takes priority here so we pulled back with the final combo we ended up with.

Voltage Stability

And here are the voltages during our stress test with deviation numbers. Any system dipping past 11.4V (ATX spec allows 5%) could experience stability issues and our readings show us decent numbers.

110V Testing

The PSU specs lists itself as a 220v unit but the original specs sheet of the white label model lists it as a 110-220v unit. The clip above shows the Rakk Agos plugged into a 110v step down transformer.

Conclusion

RAKK Gears has a lot to gain and also a lot to lose with the AGOS PSU. Heck, in this review alone I risked my RTX 3090 and RTX 3070 if their PSU didn’t have overload safety, particularly on the 550W unit testing as outlet draw on that system peaks at ~600W but then again, this is AC draw and we should be drawing 650W from the wall to truly peak at 550W internal for the RAKK AGOS 550W.

The unit did trip its overcurrent protection even with a 280W CPU load and 350W GPU load, meaning we’re way past the 500W maximum draw we can get from that 12V line, which is good as we know that it’s not forcing itself to push components past their limits and at least safety features for overload is working.

At least from my testing, I can say this PSU works as advertised and, within reason, tolerate an upgrade as long as the plugs match. This means if you’re coming off a GTX 1660 SUPER and want to jump to an RTX 4060, then even the RAKK AGOS 450W can power your system.

One reader has asked that we try the unit in unstable AC conditions to simulate poor areas in the Philippines with either rotating brownouts or just fluctuating power, I currently don’t have equipment to simulate dipping AC output but I am thinking of a way to replicate one safely and one that doesn’t endanger my household. Internally, teh RAKK AGOS is an auto-volt model but is only listed for 220v. Just in-case we’re pluggin in a 110v outlet, here’s the testing:

That at least confirms, we’re not gonna get issues when plugged into a 110v outlet and put into work.

There is soemthing I have to discuss though, and its about that 80 PLUS badge. I have made a detailed breakdown of 80 PLUS a few years ago (and it definitely deserves an update) and I’m also working on a Cybenetics certification guide. Both 80 PLUS and Cybenetics are certifications that prove that a power supply passes multiple testing to reach the certifying body’s rating.

For 80 PLUS, this is primarily for efficiency. For Cybenetics, it’s efficiency and noise ratings. Cybenetics also takes retail cable length into account. But what both company do is offer that marketing badge you on the packaging of the power supply.

The 80 PLUS certification badge, ranging from White to Titanium, denotes how efficient a power supply is. While 80 PLUS ratings don’t necessarily equate to quality, a power supply’s efficiency itself is proportional to how well-made the components inside the PSU is at doing their job which is converting AC power to DC power and routing that to all the components on the system.

For the longest time 80 PLUS has been a symbol for quality and nearly all PSUs from reputable brands have it. It is the universal symbol that a PSU is well-made, so much so that a lot of fake 80 PLUS badges have surfaced over throughout the years. While the PSU bearing the fake badge may not be that bad, it does put the intent of the manufacturer behind it in question.

So in the case of the RAKK AGOS’ usage of the 80 PLUS Bronze badge which is awarded to EINAREX legitimate? Its actually a grey area. A rebranded power supply cannot carry over an 80 PLUS badge from its original unit, even if it is a 1:1 copy.

While RAKK Gears or Tecnomall can apply for new testing, a rebranded PSU does not have to be tested if its a full clone. Still, 80 PLUS requires badge users to pay for the badge usage on a certified product. The RAKK AGOS may be going around this as they are technically becoming the trade name for Tecnomall in PH as denoted by the EINAREX branding on the packaging.

Also, with regards to the “PSU Tier List” while it is a useful guide to choosing a power supply, it is not always reliable. Situations wherein no review is available disqualifies a product from the list and while fair, it does discount situations like this wherein a local brand rebrands another PSU or outright dismisses anything that no form of clout in the PSU market. And while I applaud Cultist Network for their noble goal for maintaining the database, the list has also created a sub-culture of snobs who either think Tom’s Hardware and LTT maintains that list or are actual cultist’s that take that list as gospel, forcing others to submit unto thy list.

With all of those out of the way, I did instruct RAKK Gears to pull random samples off of their retail batch and use it for their own testing. With the myriad of combinations that this PSU will face, especially at its price range, I don’t doubt Pinoy ingenuity will eventually find a way to abuse this power supply.

For the average gamer, if you’re on a particularly lighter system e.g. Ryzen 5 3600 and a GTX 1660 SUPER or Radeon RX 580, you can best benefit from the RAKK AGOS 550W while those using Ryzen APUs or CPU-only systems with IGPs, then the RAKK AGOS 450W is a good option.

At PHP1595 for the 450W and PHP1795 for 550W, RAKK Gears contends directly with many up and coming PSU players in the market as well as high-capacity KPOP PSUs, Pinoy PC enthusiast parlance for “Korean True-Rated power supply” with capacity options that are just too insane to be real (800W for PHP1,000, come onn) and at their current price range, the RAKK AGOS PSU line is set to disrupt the budget and entry-level PSU market with its pricing.

While I do feel its par for the course, a 1-year warranty does seem pretty short and I also feel the same about the PSU’s cable length. Regardless, these are minor nitpicks overall as we’re still trying to pick apart the RAKK AGOS PSU.

RAKK Gears backs the AGOS PSU with a 1-year warranty. Available now at EasyPC online store and branches, Shopee and Lazada.